Progetto Martha Argerich

italiano

Works

Robert Schumann

Sonata for violin and piano n. 1 in in A minor

 

Schumann wrote both of his sonatas for violin and piano in the autumn of 1851, one hard on the heels of the other: 12- 16 September for Op. 105 and 26 October-2 November in the case of Op. 121. The Sonata in A minor, Op. 105, is a work that in many ways beautifully exemplifies the characteristics of Schumann’s musical language during his last creative period. This three-movement work is noteworthy above all for its brevity and for its absolute formal purity, which seems to achieve exemplary conciseness following a tormented experimental period. The first movement displays all the noblest characteristics of Schumann’s musical language – the impassioned rushes, the retreats, the tenderness – all of it expressed without the excessive length that sometimes afflicts the first movements of his piano sonatas. The following Allegretto is filled with dreamy melancholy and with that sense of regret for past losses which few musicians have been capable of expressing as perfectly as Schumann. The composition ends with a rondo-sonata movement (Lebhaft = lively), in which the two instruments appear to chase after each other without ever finding what they seek, and in which virtuosity is used essentially for expressing great disquiet and internal pain in a sort of idealised drama that seems never to reach a conclusion.

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1. Ziemlich langsam-Lebhaft
2. Scherzi
3. Intermezzo
4. Finale

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Performance